“You are bad,” Hattie said in her best imitation of Mammy from GWTW.
I polished off an apricot Danish just as the rest of our posse arrived. Clara was breathless but she had the presence of mind to bring a yellow legal pad. (Old journalists never die.) Suzy and Amy brought up the rear with a cooler full of chicken salad, tuna surprise, and other assorted goodies that Pauline sent. Pauline’s husband owned the remodeling company. News travels at light speed when it concerns bodies underneath a dining room floor of a stately manor.
Howard finished his business with the detectives and closed the double doors when he reentered the room. He greeted everyone and poured a much needed cup of caffeine. Neither he nor Hattie could be persuaded to eat.
Howard rang a bell and asked Callie to store the perishables in the refrigerator. He was pale and seemed shaken. Everyone was dying to know what I finally asked.
“Do the police have any idea who the person is?”
“Of course it’s speculation until the medical examiner checks the DNA, gathers fingerprints if that’s even possible, and correlates it with missing persons. We believe the corpse is female. She may have been the girlfriend of a former mobster. I learned that this ‘manor’ was a speakeasy back in the day and housed a lot of famous and infamous people in its time.
Chief Browning has her best people on the case. There was no identification on the body, but she says because it is in a mummified state it has been here more than twenty years. The air ducts were near the body and it was completely sealed. Twenty years or so ago was when the last major renovation was done on this place.”
“Please no more details, dear. I can’t bear to think of that poor soul and how she suffered and to be relegated to that. What about her family? What they must have suffered not knowing? Oh I don’t think I can stay down here anymore? Suzy, would you escort me to the elevator? I’m going back to lie down for a while.”
“Of course, Hattie,” Suzy responded. “Would you rather Howard come with you?”
“No, the police will no doubt have more questions that only he can answer,” Hattie responded and blew Howard a kiss as she wheeled by. Suzy tip-toed behind as if noise might awaken any other spirits that might be lurking around.
“I’m so sorry to drag all of you into this, but I knew your presence would be comforting to Hattie,” Howard said. He was on his third cup of coffee and color was beginning to come back into his cheeks. It must be very alarming to be awakened with the news that your dream house contained a mummy under the dining room floor.
I must phone Tom and bring him up to speed. He will want to be here for Howard. They went through a harrowing experience together when they were kidnapped in New Orleans. Ever since, they have been fast friends.
~2~
Just two weeks ago the Athena community and Golden Palms had welcomed the newlyweds’ return with a reception in their honor. Everyone was anxious to hear about New Orleans - the kidnapping, the rescue, and especially the quickie but lovely wedding. Tom took a great deal of pleasure in regaling the story with embellishments whenever the opportunity arose.
We displayed our pictures of the beautiful pink ceremony that Amy, Suzy, Clara, and I pulled off with barely twenty-four hours’ notice. Of course, the concierge was a magnificent help. Plus Mother Nature added her touch of snow at just the right time. It was a magical event and I sighed every time I looked at Hattie decked out like a fairy tale princess. Howard was truly her prince charming. This was not the man I was looking at now.
I took in my surroundings of a gorgeous gray sofa with matching love seat encircled by two plum colored high back chairs surrounded by bookcases lined with the classics. The Saunders had an entertainment area with a 60-inch flat screen that most men would give their eye teeth for. Tom could hardly wait for an invitation to watch football on that flat screen.
I phoned my husband and left a message. I didn’t give him the full scoop but I suspect in a town our size, he’d know the latest soon enough. Since I had no idea how long I’d be at the manor I just let him know I was with Hattie and Howard.
After what seemed like days, the paramedics and the ambulance left transporting the body. I assume to the morgue. There’d be no reason to go to a funeral home. Her relatives had given up the notion of finding her a long time ago. Besides after all this time, they were probably deceased as well.
The Chief popped her head in and asked to have a word with Howard. They stepped outside the double doors. Clara asked me a few questions about what I knew which wasn’t much. Howard returned and asked that we stay while he went downtown with the Chief. Of course we agreed.
As soon as everyone left, Clara and I peeked into the dining room. The workers had cordoned off most of the room when they removed the existing furniture. Underneath the chandelier where the dining table would ordinarily be was a huge cavern of a hole where the water damaged lumber had been removed. It was there that the body had been discovered. The original layer of flooring was intact with an overlay of laminate. The former owners decided not to remove the original flooring; they just installed laminate on top. Of course they had no idea what lay beneath. I’m sure the police will follow up with the original owners if they can find them. I heard they went to St. Kitts or Nevis or St. Bart’s or somewhere like that.
Suzy returned from Hattie’s room. We explained about Howard having to go downtown with the Chief.
“No sense letting these go to waste,” Suzy said as she placed a pastry on a plate and poured a fresh cup of coffee. “Hattie is resting and I think some or all of us should stay for a while.”
Amy said, “I of course will stay with Suzy. What about you two?”
“I can’t commit yet. I haven’t been able to reach Tom,” I said.
Clara finished swallowing a bite of croissant said, “Derek and I have plans for this afternoon but we can reschedule.”
“No need,” I said. “We can work out a rotation so that if Howard is called away. Hattie always has someone with her. I’m wondering if this body has anything to do with Watsonville Tavern and the rumors surrounding it. Sounds like something you could research for us, Clara.”
“Yes I’d love that. I’ll get to it right now. Let me know if you find out anything else like the person’s name, address, or relationships,” Clara responded by grabbing her notepad and leaving.
~3~
“I thought she’d never leave,” I joked to Amy and Suzy. “For some odd reason, I was just remembering when Amy and I signed up to take belly dancing lessons. This was when I was new to the area and before Amy’s accident. I’m not even sure that I had met Hattie at Golden Palms yet. We labeled it a bonding experience. It was. But not in the way that we anticipated.”
“Oh Lord I hadn’t thought of that in years,” Amy said. “Are you going to tell the story or should I?”
“Go ahead. I’m setting my coffee down because I don’t want to spew it all over you.”
Amy began, “Well it went something like this:
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Roxy asked for the third time. “It just says DANCE on the sign.”
I answered, “This is Madame Nadia’s Belly Dancing Emporium according to the GPS, but this neighborhood gives me the creeps.”
Roxy balked at going in. “I may be the new kid on the block but I recognize the Projects when I see them. We should be learning self-defense not belly dancing. I can’t get mugged here. I’m the minister’s wife at First Church for heaven’s sakes. If Tom knew where I was he’d have a hissy fit.”
At this point, we were pretty new acquaintances so we thought this adventure would be fun. I had a Groupon and this was a chance to have a Girls Night Out. Roxy figured this was a way to get Tom’s motor running, if you catch my drift.
“Ms. Roxy and Ms. Amy, Please follow me.”
The speaker was draped in a lemon gauze ensemble that made her look like a giant Twinkie. Her heavily glittered eyelids were almost closed. Glitter must be heavier than I thought. S
he accepted the Groupon and motioned us into the inner sanctum.
“These are the chambers where you will transform into hypnotic sexual creatures”
We looked around to see who she was referring to. When the human Twinkie vanished, Roxy and I looked at each other and giggled like teens on a secret mission. We unpacked our costumes direct from Zsa Zsa’s. What I paid for 3 ounces of chartreuse gossamer harem pants and matching bra trimmed in enough coinage to ride the Amtrak was outrageous.
Suzy interrupted Amy’s narration with loud outbursts of laughter. The tears streamed down her face. I thought we might have to administer oxygen. We shushed her so she wouldn’t cause Callie to come into the room.
Where was I? Oh yes, the dressing room.
“Roxy said Um. I don’t think all of my costume is here.”
“What do you mean? You saw the saleslady box it.”
“I know but my bra has holes in it,” Roxy showed me her bra which resembled a sieve with tassels. I could tell that it was also too small for her ample bosoms. There was no time for an exchange so we improvised.
Like the trooper she is, Roxy shoved herself into the coin trimmed bra which made for generously overflowing cups. With each movement, a tinkle came from a silver bell attached to the tassel.
“My costume looks a lot skimpier than it did in the shop,” I said as I pulled a tiny G-string out of the pink box. While Roxy forced her bosoms into a cup where her teat poked through, I was squeezing my buttocks into a triangle with a ribbon.
“Do you have one of these?” Roxy held up the bit of cloth that was supposed to cover nether parts. Is it supposed to be a thong?”
“When it grows up, maybe,” I said. “It goes underneath your harem pants if you could call them pants”
“My waistband doesn’t come to my waist leaving my hoo-ha cold not to mention my navel. I feel like one of those hoochie coochie dancers at Café Risqué.”
The human Twinkie reappeared accompanied by a woman draped in orange. She introduced herself as Madame Nadia. They proceeded to examine our costumes.
“Let me see,” Madame Nadia demanded.
She pulled the waistband of Roxy’s harem pants down to her pelvic bone. Neither of us had seen exposure like that since we had a pap smear. When I chose my chartreuse see-through ensemble with matching bra, I must have been on pain pills because I looked like a jaundiced extraterrestrial ready for hospice.
The harem pants were covered in sequins while my bra held enough bells to be a chapel. No chance of sneaking up on anyone in this get up. Nadia had her cohorts tie more ribbons with attached bells on our feet and toes so that any slight movement created a sound.
“Tighten your mammary. Your bosoms should spill over the cup. Point your toes when you walk. Envision your toes walking a delicate line,” Nadia instructed.
I did a silent count. There were nine of us on the dance floor in assorted transparent apparel. Zsa Zsa’s made a killing on this group. You could read a newspaper through any of our pants and the tops were obscene to say the least. There wasn’t more than a yard of chiffon in the entire room.
Nadia instructed us to sit in a circle. I prayed my pants held up under the strain. As Nadia droned on about belly dancing, my sight began to adjust to the heavily draped studio with low lighting. Soft Arabian music and potted palms completed the mood. I half expected a snake charmer to greet us with a cobra rising out of a basket.
Twinkie rang the gong and a six pack of Nehi grape soda swathed attendants emerged from a back room. Each had flawless skin. We saw about 99% of it. The other 1% was covered with two tassels and a mini triangle. The six-pack demonstrated how to tie hip scarves as if we weren’t tinkling enough.
“We will begin with hip lifts. Lifts and drops are the most basic moves in belly dancing,” Nadia explained.
“Maybe this will be fun after all,” Roxy whispered to me just as her bra popped and its contents begin to sag jingling all the way. An attendant appeared and did her best with a safety pin.
“If Tom doesn’t have a stroke laughing at me, I might just bring this off,” Roxy said.
“No talking,” Nadia glared at us.
“Concentrate on your movements. Your body and mind must work together. Imagine a puppeteer is pulling the strings and you have no control. Your hips and shoulders must work independently of each other.”
Suzy was about to wet herself she was laughing so hard. “How can you remember this verbatim?” she asked.
“It’s seared into my brain,” Amy replied. “Next she had us do some more movements, before hell broke loose.”
While Nadia circled the room tucking in bellies, bending knees, and adjusting poses, I avoided looking at Roxy whose top was dipping ever so slowly to the Mason/Dixon line. Soon her belly and bosom would be one. If her bells and coins became entangled, it’s all over.
Just when I was getting the hang of bending my knee to drop and straightening my knee to lift, Nadia added in a toe movement that I wasn’t ready for. I teetered. Roxy caught me and we burst into laughter. Obviously we were the screw-ups of the group. Again, we got the stink eye. I easily pictured Nadia with a Hitler-esque mustache and boots doing the goose-step.
Next was the shimmy. I began to softly sing, “I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate, she shimmies like jelly on the plate.” I was singing louder than I realized because all eyes shifted to me. Nadia twirled. Oh no. Here comes the fire hose, but instead she demonstrated the perfect shimmy by leaning forward with her top half while keeping her bottom half stationary.
“Imagine opening up of a flower. Your sexual offering must flutter. A joyful shimmy is a sharing moment, not a breast jiggling exercise!”
I whispered to Roxy, “In your case it is.”
That comment struck both of us as hilarious. Roxy laughed hard and long - that’s when I noticed a puddle between us. I warned her about that 40 ounce Slurpee.
Roxy rushed to the ladies’ room. But it was too late – a gossamer G-string can absorb only so much. With a pee pee puddle in front of me, all I could do was wipe flowing tears as I cackled. Nadia’s posse herded everyone but me into another room.
“Come with me,” Nadia said. I met Roxy on the way. She had already changed into her street clothes. Nadia advised me to do the same. She said that our money would be refunded. I noticed she left out the word cheerfully.
“Was that it?” Suzy asked.
“Not quite,” Amy answered. “I had a few more things to say to Roxy on the way home.”
“Not the experience I imagined,” I said as we drove home. “Did you unlock a secret power that will add excitement to the bedroom?”
“The only thing I unlocked is a dislocated sacroiliac,” Roxy said. “I just pray we get out of this neighborhood without anyone in the congregation seeing us. Just in case we get mugged, I pinned a $20 bill and a note to my bra asking that they move us to a nicer neighborhood.
I don’t want my epitaph to read: Roxy Thibideaux, beloved wife, mother, and grandmother died while dancing the hoochie coochie in the hood.”
Suzy gasped and made a dash to the restroom. When she returned, she asked, “How did you keep that a secret, Amy? That is a hilarious story. At one point, I thought I was going to need CPR.”
“Roxy said she’d kill me if I told anyone. This is the first time I’ve had permission to repeat it,” Amy said.
“And the last. Maybe we’ll tell Hattie someday and perhaps Clara. But Clara is liable to put it in the newspaper and then the powers that be will boot us out of the church. No I can’t take that chance,” I said. “Believe me it was funnier telling that story than it actually was. I was mortified. I think I still have marks where that so-called bra dug into my skin.”
“Maybe we can use the costumes for Halloween,” Suzy said and muffled a laugh.
“Yeah sure, mine is big enough for a dwarf,”
“No secrets in the Thursday Club,” Hattie said as she wheeled herself into the living room. “You know the rule
s.”
“Can we have just the one? At least until we retire from First Church,” I begged.
“Maybe just the one,” Hattie smiled. “Now can someone fix me a sandwich with Pauline’s famous chicken salad?”
~3~
Our stomachs were growling, so we did the only thing we could --bypass the dining room and help ourselves to Pauline’s goodies. We took our trays into the den, a perfect gathering place. The pine paneled walls added to the aura of seclusion. Whereas the brown harness leather furniture was comfy and added to the family atmosphere. I could envision a roaring fire in the fireplace, crystal mugs of eggnog, and Christmas caroling as we toasted another season. This room was straight out of Country Living. The only difference was that this one was filled with joy in spite of circumstances. Just one thing I wanted to know – who’s Howard’s decorator?
Hattie had to be brought up to date on the who-is-dating-who issues and where was Clara by the way. She wanted to know if William was gonna make an honest woman out of Amy and how Tony’s business was faring.
I’m happy she didn’t ask too much about me since it was time for the mammogram checkup that I always dreaded. In the month they were gone I went to several watercolor classes to take my mind off depressing items. It was a great diversion and I made a few friends. Alas I had no talent and quickly disposed of each masterpiece as soon as I got home.
“How’s the gang at Golden Palms?” Hattie asked. “I need to visit and see everyone. Is Elvira still the grumpy gut that she’s always been? Maybe I’ll take some chocolate and see how that makes the inmates happy and the staff crazy.” Hattie laughed her famous infectious laugh. I was so glad to hear it. Now if we could just erase the first part of the day, we’d be home free.
Hattie glowed as she told us all about St. Thomas, St. Kitts, and St. John islands. Howard didn’t leave anything to chance. They toured, celebrated, and cruised their way around the Caribbean like royalty. I was so happy that I could almost burst.
Thursday Club Mysteries: All 7 stories Page 32